Cheeky quip the Queen made to William and Kate's wedding cake maker
Picture this: you've been tasked with making the cake for the biggest royal wedding in decades. When you struggle to get it into the palace, someone has to, y'know, remove a door, and then the Queen comes to check on your progress...
That's the situation Fiona Cairns found herself in a decade ago this month, in the days before Prince William married Kate Middleton on April 29, 2011.
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Fiona Cairns with the cake she made for the 2011 royal wedding. PA Images via Getty Images
The British baker had the honour of whipping up the royal couple's eight-tier fruit cake, served during the reception in Buckingham Palace.
As far as wedding cake commissions go, that's a pretty daunting one — and Cairns and her team faced some unexpected hurdles when it came to transporting their creation.
Appearing in documentary The Day Will and Kate Got Married, released ahead of the couple's 10th anniversary, Cairns recalled having to get creative in order to wheel the fruit cake into the reception venue in the days leading to the event.
Kate had a very clear idea of the cake she wanted, Cairns says. Getty
And by 'get creative', we mean removing a door. As in, a door of Buckingham Palace. As in, the Queen's main royal residence. No biggie.
Naturally, the Queen stopped by as Cairns and her team were putting the last touches on the 3' tall, 99kg creation.
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"I can remember her saying, 'I hear that you've been dismantling my house,'" she recalled in the ITV special.
How we picture the Queen looked after she made that remark... AP
It wasn't out of character; Her Majesty is known for her dry humour, and has made plenty of quips over the years.
Still, Cairns assured her the door removal had only been temporary.
The Leicestershire baker, who later made the wedding cake for Lady Gabriella Windsor's 2019 wedding, created the towering cake in consultation with Kate.
A closer look at the icing decorations on William and Kate's cake. PA Images via Getty Images
"I would say that Kate designed her wedding cake, because she knew very clearly what she wanted and did not want," Cairns told Town and Country.
"The ideas came from her, we had meetings with her, and the brief was from Kate ... She put us absolutely at ease."
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The iced fruit cake cake took five weeks to make, and was decorated with up to 900 sugar flowers. It was assembled at the palace over two-and-a-half days.
Cairns also made Lady Gabriella Windsor's royal wedding cake. Getty
Per wedding tradition, William and Kate saved the top two tiers for the christenings of their future children.
The couple also had a second cake for their wedding reception, chosen by William: a chocolate biscuit cake created by McVitie's Cake Company.
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